


Thank Heaven for Little Girls

by M_Leigh



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:44:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Leigh/pseuds/M_Leigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Sally is looking at her with that bright light in her eyes again. “I’m going to see you tomorrow because I get to come to work.” “Yes,” Peggy agrees. “I’m sure we can find something for you to do.”' Sally Draper visits Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Written pre-season 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Part of working at an ad agency that operates – still, after four months – out of a hotel room is having to drive to places like Boston for meetings instead of flying. It’s not a sacrifice that Peggy minds, because she never used to get to go anywhere, even in a car, and also because nobody complains about getting left behind if they know all they’re missing is eight hours alone in a car with Don.

Don, everybody agrees, has been unpleasant lately. Peggy thinks he has always been unpleasant, but usually it is easier to forget it. Even some of the clients have begun to notice. Roger has taken to apologizing – quiet murmured comments around his cigarettes that make them chuckle, understanding; it’s not often a man like that loses his wife, they think to themselves, no indeed – and Peggy doesn’t think Don has realized yet. They’d all know if he had.

He chain smokes all the way to Boston and doesn’t say anything about the account, so Peggy watches the highway roll past her window and thinks about everything she has to do for next Monday for four hours. They are working on three new campaigns, four if the meeting in Boston goes their way. She tries to think about how one brand of pantyhose varies from the next, and realizes that she still buys the brand her sister used to. Maybe she’ll go to the store this weekend and try some of the others. She could use some new ones anyway.

The meeting goes well. The two fat old men waiting for them in the restaurant at the Liberty raise their eyebrows at her and she doesn’t smile. Don does the smiling, and he looks like he’s pressing his teeth together so hard his jaw is going to splinter. Somehow he charms them anyway, and Peggy explains to them what exactly they will see on the television – and when they will see it – if they decide to take their business to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and thinks that by the end of the meal they might have begun to take her seriously.

Don hardly says anything on the way back, either, just keeps smoking. Peggy thinks about the new Clearasil ads and whether or not playing only to girls is a smart decision. She thinks about the four print ads they’ve drafted so far and about the television spot that they haven’t even started yet because they haven’t got any ideas. Pete’s been stalling – he’s good at that – but he shouldn’t be. Tonight she’ll go home and not let herself sleep until she’s come up with something. They could shoot by the end of next week, maybe. She wishes Sal hadn’t quit the way he had. He was better than the man they had doing art now. He flirted with her, and she did not like him.

Halfway back to the city they stop at a rest station and Don uses the pay phone to call the office while Peggy goes to the ladies’ room. When she comes out he’s already back in the car, smoking, and she’s surprised he hasn’t crushed the cigarette between his fingers he looks so tense.

“What?” she asks, and he doesn’t look at her.

“I need to make a stop before we go back,” he says, eyes fixed on the parking lot. His right hand, the one that’s not holding the cigarette, is folded on his thigh, casually. His knuckles aren’t white – he’s not clenching it at all – but that almost makes it worse.

“Okay,” she replies, because that seems to be the only thing to say.

It’s almost dusk by the time they pull up in front of the house. It’s a nice house, Peggy thinks, but she doesn’t really know a lot about houses. She wouldn’t know what to do with the space, for one thing, and the thought of decorating all of those rooms makes her queasy.

Don gets out without saying anything to her, which she thinks dryly is become a theme for the day. He stalks to the front door and slams the knocker once, and then twice, and Peggy decides to get out of the car when she sees the little girl sitting on the lawn in her ballet outfit looking surly. She tries to remember her name and fails. There’s a boy, too, she thinks, but she’s not sure.

After she’s shut the door behind her she sees that the door of the house has opened and there is a woman there, wearing the most beautiful blue dress Peggy has ever seen someone wear during the day, talking to Don. They’re standing too close and Don’s shoulders have pulled tight in the middle. The woman – Betty – is looking up at him with an expression on her face that makes Peggy shiver because she doesn’t think she’s ever hated anybody that way. It almost ruins how beautiful she is, but not quite.

Peggy makes herself look away and turns back to the girl. Her hair is in a bun and her little shoulders slope sadly under the black straps of her leotard. She’s sitting on top of a little suitcase, Peggy notices, and there’s a book sitting next to her in the grass. There’s something terrifyingly Don Draper about her, about the surly cast of her eyes and the misery that positively radiates from her little frame, and it makes Peggy like her immediately even if she is not, as a rule, good with children.

The girl looks up at her once she’s a few feet away, and tilts her head to the side to scrutinize her. It’s another thing that Don does, although by this point in his life he’s learned not to be so obvious about it. Peggy recognizes that look in him, now, but people who haven’t been around him so much – who don’t know him so well – don’t. They think he is polite. Peggy thinks he is transparent.

“Hello,” she says to the girl.

“Hi,” the girl responds after a second. Peggy supposes she’s decided not to ignore her.

“I’m Peggy,” she says. “I work with your father.”

“I’m Sally.” The name doesn’t ring a bell. Peggy’s not sure how to go on from there.

“How old are you?” she asks eventually.

“Ten,” Sally says. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in being ten, which Peggy understands once she thinks back to what being ten was like. Sally looks at the house, where her parents are still fighting – although they have at least learned, at some point, to do it quietly enough that they can’t be heard across the yard – and as Peggy watches her she grows appreciably more sullen.

“What are you reading?” she asks because it’s the only thing in the world she can think of to say, and if they sit – or, in her case, stand – here longer watching Don and Betty fight across the lawn Peggy is going to do something regrettable.

Sally shrugs. “It’s a history book.”

“About what?”

Sally is looking at her as though nobody has ever asked her about whatever book she is reading, which Peggy guesses is possible, if not likely. “It’s about the Civil War,” she says eventually, her hint of a lisp coming out more strongly now for some reason, and Peggy wonders how many ten year-old girls in this godforsaken suburban town are reading books about wars in their spare time.

“I like history,” she continues cautiously. “My grandpa Gene did too. He was in a war once. Not the Civil War,” she clarifies. “A different one.”

“My dad was in a war,” Peggy says, and Sally nods.

“My dad was, too,” she tells her very solemnly.

Before Peggy can reply Don has come stalking across the lawn looking as though he wants to kill somebody – has he ever killed anybody, Peggy wonders – and tells Sally shortly that he needs to go _now_ and she had better get in the car quickly if she doesn’t want to get left behind. Sally is up faster than Peggy can blink and runs to the car like a shot, even weighted down by her suitcase. She’s forgotten her book in the grass so Peggy picks it up for her, and when she gets back to the car she sees that Sally has already climbed into the front seat. She gets in the back without saying anything, and Don hurls the car into gear and speeds down the street without looking back at her. She imagines that if she had stayed there in his – his wife’s – lawn he would not have noticed her absence until he got home. She watches Betty through the window as they scream down the road, watches the way she has folded her arms tightly in front of her and has curled her shoulders in like she’s trying to protect herself from something, and then they turn a corner and she vanishes.

  
Nobody says anything for a half-hour. Peggy tries desperately to think about the Clearasil television spot and fails. Sally is crowded into the corner of her seat farthest away from Don, and it is a small miracle that Don has not driven them off the road yet. He is certainly going fast enough.

Eventually she realizes she is still holding the girl’s book in her lap and she leans forward to give it to her.

“Here,” she tells her. “I know it’s too dark to read, but I didn’t want to forget.”

Sally turns around and looks at her and even in the fading light Peggy can see the sharp flicker of something in her eyes.

“Thanks,” she says, and doesn’t turn back. “What do you do, for your job?”

“I write ads,” Peggy replies.

“Really?”

“Yes.” She smiles a little. “Yes, I do.”

Sally looks at her for a long time, appraising her just like her father has done on so many occasions, and once she has made some sort of decision turns to him and says, authoritatively with a hint of fear running beneath her words, “I want to go to work with you tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Don replies absently, and Sally looks back at her for just another second and smiles wide, displaying her mouthful of crooked teeth, before curling back into her seat. After a while she falls asleep, and Peggy finds herself gazing at the headlights travelling steadily away from the city.

Sally wakes her up, shaking her by the shoulder, and Peggy nearly has a heart attack. The girl looks tentative.

“We’re here,” she tells her. “I think he forgot about you.”

“Thank you,” Peggy says. “I’m going to go home now.”

“Okay.” Sally is looking at her with that bright light in her eyes again. “I’m going to see you tomorrow because I get to come to work.”

“Yes,” Peggy agrees. “I’m sure we can find something for you to do.”

In the morning Don looks just as he has for weeks – that is, haggard – but Sally is practically glowing. Peggy watches from across the room as Don takes her over to Joan and says something about emergencies, and as Sally turns and waves to her as though they share some kind of secret. Peggy waves back, and sees Joan watching out of the corner of her eye.

Don retreats to his corner of the office and Peggy stops watching him when Joan brings Sally over.

“Peggy,” Joan says, “if it wouldn’t be too much –”

“I’ll be really quiet,” Sally interrupts, eyes wide and earnest. “I promise.”

“Okay,” Peggy agrees, and shakes her head minutely when Joan’s eyes flick once to Don and once to Sally and then back to Peggy. They’ve gotten good at this, being the only two women here – Peggy’s not sure she’ll ever quite understand Joan, or that Joan will ever understand her, but that’s starting to matter less and less. _I have no idea_ , Peggy thinks as she looks up at her. _If I did, I would tell you_.

Sally sits down on the ottoman next to where Peggy works – an armchair, typewriter perched on a coffee table – and seems prepared to do nothing but watch her the whole day. Peggy’s got a pair of nylons on her desk. BEL AMI NYLONS, the tag says in big pink lettering. She tears them open and unfolds them so they cover the coffee table. They’re a pale, peach-brown color and they look exactly like every pair of nylons Peggy’s ever worn.

“I have to figure out some way to make people want to buy this kind of nylons instead of any other kind,” she says to Sally, who reaches forward tentatively and feels one of the feet, rubs it between her fingers.

“Are they special?” she asks, turning back to look at Peggy with her big brown eyes.

“No,” Peggy tells her. “They’re exactly like all of the other kinds.”

Sally frowns. “Then how do you make people buy them?”

“You make something up,” Peggy says. Sally stares at her for a moment and then Peggy sees something click in her.

“Like making up a story,” Sally says.

“Yes,” Peggy agrees. “But… it has to be a really short story. Short enough that people know the whole story if they only see one picture.”

Sally frowns. “That sounds hard.”

“It is sometimes,” Peggy admits. “Here –” She leans over to the box of old campaigns they’ve got sitting under the window next to her chair and looks for a good one. The popsicle is still her favorite. She takes it out carefully, makes sure it doesn’t get bent, and puts it on top of the pantyhose on the table.

“I did this one,” she tells Sally, who leans in for a better look. “See? There’s a mom, and she’s giving the popsicles to her children… and people remember that happening to them. Their moms gave them popsicles when they were little… or they’re moms and they give popsicles to their kids, and when they see the ad they remember that and then they want to buy them.”

Sally’s still looking at the ad, very seriously, and Peggy thinks back to Betty’s brittle frame hidden in the doorway of the house.

“Anyway,” she says quickly, taking the ad and putting it back in the box, “I’m trying to come up with something for the nylons.”

Sally nods.

“So,” Peggy says slowly, talking half to herself and half to the girl sitting next to her, “why do people wear nylons?”

“To look pretty,” Sally says immediately.

“Right,” Peggy agrees. “So to make people buy _these_ nylons…”

“They have to make you the _prettiest_ ,” Sally finishes.

“Exactly.” Sally turns and looks up at her, and grins, displaying her crooked teeth. Don snarls something at Roger on the other side of the room, and Peggy feels herself smiling back.

It helps, sometimes, to have somebody to talk to when you are trying to think, and Peggy tries out all of her ideas on Sally. It doesn’t matter whether she doesn’t quite understand what Peggy is getting at – although she usually does – it just matter that she is there, listening. When Peggy is writing or typing up letters to companies she should have sent out the day before Sally looks through the box of old copy, and takes a turn at the typewriter for a while, and when it’s time to get lunch she doesn’t budge from Peggy’s side. She tells her all about what is happening in the book she is reading – the Emancipation Proclamation – and about the books she used to read with her Grandpa Gene before he died. Peggy listens and tells her about her grandfather when she asks, although she doesn’t remember him very well, since he died when she was little. After lunch Sally goes back to typing up letters to clients that will never be sent because of all of the typos, and listens to Peggy as she explains the ideas she has for the nylons ad. It is, Peggy reflects, like having a small, personable shadow for a day.

Sometime in the early afternoon, when she is showing Sally a sketch for one of her ideas and Sally is asking about the colors, Peggy looks up and realizes the entire office is watching them, every single person, even as they make sure to keep working. Pete is staring unabashedly with a funny expression on his face and she looks hurriedly away from him and toward Don, just because he is on in opposite direction.

He’s looking at her, really _looking_ at her, which he hasn’t done in months, and Peggy doesn’t look away. He’s looking at her as though he’s never seen her before in his life, and she barely even recognizes him. She turns back to Sally after a minute but she can still feel his eyes on her for what feels like ages.

At around four-thirty she realizes that Sally has fallen fast asleep on the ottoman, which is barely big enough to hold her. There’s nowhere else for her to go, though, so Peggy just puts her cardigan over her and hopes she doesn’t roll off. People start to leave at five, but she’s nearly got something for Bel Ami and she’s not going to leave until she’s finished.

By the time it’s done it’s completely dark outside and everyone has left except for Don. She has no idea what time it is and she’s startled to see him sitting at the couch with one of the smaller typewriters sitting awkwardly on his thighs. He’s smoking slowly, and when she puts down her pencil he looks over at her and moves the typewriter onto the cushion next to him. She swallows.

“She’s been acting up,” he says after a moment. He’s leaning back into the couch in a way that seems almost alien on him – gone is the tense, angry clenching of his shoulders and his hands. His hair has come a little out of its stern arrangement, too. He raises his glass to his lips and takes a thoughtful sip of whatever he’s drinking tonight. Roger keeps the office remarkably well-stocked.

“She was very well-behaved today,” Peggy says tentatively.

“I know.” He lets the smoke slide out of his mouth and up into his face and takes another sip.

“Maybe…” Peggy begins, fully aware that she’s about to say something she shouldn’t, “maybe she’d… rather live with you, than with – with her mother.”

Don considers her for a moment. His eyes look black in the lamplight. “Probably,” he agrees.

“She could,” Peggy hears herself saying. “I – if you wanted her to.”

Don doesn’t say anything for a moment, just looks at his sleeping daughter lying on the ottoman. “What would I do with her all day?” he asks, and Peggy’s not sure whether or not he really wants an answer. She shrugs.

“She could come here,” she suggests before she has time to think about it, and then feels herself blush. It’s a stupid suggestion.

Don smiles a little. “Not very professional.”

“We work out of a hotel room,” Peggy points out, and he smiles more broadly.

“I wouldn’t want to expose her to Roger,” he says dryly. “Who knows what that could do to a little girl’s psyche.”

Peggy smiles and looks down at Sally, who has drooled on her sweater a little, and because she is feeling brave says, “She’s just like you.”

Don snorts quietly. “I hope not.”

Peggy watches him as he smokes. When he catches her eye he’s as impenetrable as ever but it doesn’t frighten her like it used to. She thinks she’s beginning to understand him.

“She made this today,” she tells him and slides out a piece of paper from beneath her pile of work. It’s a ten-year-old’s copy for Lucky Strikes featuring a man that is very obviously Don, drawn not all that badly. There isn’t actually any copy, just LUCKY STRIKES written in big letters at the top, in the same style that they used for the last campaign. The boards were in the box with Peggy’s popsicle ad and all of the rest.

Don stares at it for a long time after she’s handed it to him before folding it up neatly and tucking it into the inside pocket of his suit. He stands up and comes over to Sally on the ottoman, picks her up carefully, trying his best not to wake her and failing. She mumbles something against his shoulder and he hushes her, rubbing one of his hands across her back. Peggy rolls her cardigan into a ball and stuffs it into her purse before putting on her coat and handing Don his. He sticks it under his arm and she holds the door open for him.

On the street he hails a taxi and puts Sally inside before turning back to her. She’s got a few blocks to walk to get to the subway. It’s windy and his hair really has gotten ruined because it blows back and forth the same way her skirt is pressing against one side of her legs and then the other. He opens his mouth to say something and closes it again, and then before she has time to realize what he is going to do he presses his big hand against the side of her head, thumb on her cheek, and kisses her forcefully on the forehead. When he pulls back he looks about as surprised as she feels, and shakes his head once, smiling a little, darkly, before getting into the cab himself.

Peggy stands on the sidewalk, watching as they drive away, and fixes her hair from where he’s messed it up before she starts to walk home.

  
 **fin.**


End file.
